Gold Bars

Strident, flamboyant and radiating sexuality, she has reinvented herself with every album – going from Marlene Dietrich-style sophisticate, to fishnet-clad new wave diva complete with false eyelashes and, err… pinned on horse’s tail.

Then came the folk hippy, and now, for new album Head First, she has come over all ‘80s electro babe – with pink jumpsuits and gold dresses.

The album finds Alison in upbeat form – back to the glam exuberance of Black Cherry and synth-pop of Supernature, but lighter, looser and more retro – a spangly leap from the fragile folk of last album Seventh Tree.

“I think there is a certain naivety to it all, and it’s very up and optimistic and vibrant,” she says.

“It has big fat synth melodies, and there are a lot of hands-in-the-air moments to it, too. But you can’t please everyone can you – someone said to me that it’s too happy!”

For this record Alison, 43, and long-term collaborator Will Gregory “wanted to get the drums and synths out again.”

“We always try to do something different, or at least create a different mood,” says Alison, who was born in Enfield, North London, but raised in Alton, Hampshire, where she studied at the convent school.

“We have to push it forward somehow. There’s never a plan, and I’m never really sure what we’re going to do at the start. Every album has to be different to the last. I wouldn’t say Head First is a reaction to Seventh Tree, but we certainly didn’t want to make another folk record. I wouldn’t have been able to cope.”

The album’s standout track is opener Rocket – a slab of uplifting pop joy worthy of Olivia Newton-John. It would take a heavy heart not to crack a smile, tap a toe and wave an arm to its glorious synth-fuelled happiness.

And that sense of delight is no mistake. Although she refuses to be drawn, Alison suggests she was experiencing “something really terrible” at the time of the last album. “There were a lot of things going on, and I was stressed and really not in a good state,” she confesses.

“I think I’ve shaken off those things. Making an album is a good way to exorcise demons a little bit, and I think of each album as an era. It’s very much an expression, of yourself and what you’re doing, and it’s a chance to articulate what you can’t say in everyday life.

“Also, making something beautiful out of something really rubbish is the best revenge there is. I think Seventh Tree was very beautiful.

“I’m pretty damned happy at the moment, and it shows.”

Part of Alison’s new-found happiness might be down to her relationship with film editor Lisa Gunning – who worked with her on the John Lennon biopic Nowhere Boy, for which Goldfrapp provided the score.

She’s also working overtime. While the usual gestation period for your typical Goldfrapp long-player is a year, their latest offering was out in six months.

"We really felt like we were on a roll,” says Alison.

“It was really great to come back to the album with fresh ears having done something so different. The process of doing a soundtrack is so completely different to doing an album,” she says.

“I hoped the first album wouldn’t be the last,” she says. “Well, that was certainly the idea. I didn’t think I’d get here, to five albums, but it’s been surprises all the time.

“I’ve definitely changed quite a lot, too,” she admits.

And, for such a powerful and overtly sexual woman artist, she admits, as unbelievable as it may seem, to being shy.

“I think a lot of performers are,” she goes on. “Actors, performers, artists… a lot of us are acting, it’s a very common thing.

“I was really shy 10 years ago – I’m pretty shy now, but I was really shy then, really nervous. I don’t particularly enjoy the misconceptions about me or our music, although I think a lot of people think I’m going to be difficult and awkward when they meet me,” she says, adding with a laugh: “But I quite like that!”

Goldfrapp play the Oxford O2 Academy on Monday. Album Head First and single Rocket are out now on the Mute label.